


knock knock

by ruinate



Series: nothing to see / all beauty destroyed [1]
Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Breaking and Entering, Creepy twins, Death Threats, Demon Children, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Protective Parents, The Twins Make Really Uncomfortable Sexual Comments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 06:15:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11663322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruinate/pseuds/ruinate
Summary: didn't your mother tell you that breaking the law was wrong?





	knock knock

**Author's Note:**

> as a preface:  
> 1) i headcanon crish to robert and mary's son  
> 2) the twins make really vague sexual comments about other people but never outright say anything  
> 3) not really cult ending but more based on my own personal speculations from early july about joseph and his twins.  
> 4) implied relationships: robert/mary, robert/joseph  
> 5) joseph threatens robert with accusations of pedophilia, but there's nothing explicit + robert didn't _do_ anything.

Robert’s fingers settle around the hook and tension wrench, dug out from the small kit he’d purchased from Amazon. He’d been good at this, back in high school - when he and his then girlfriend, half stoned, half drunk, had picked the lock to her best friend’s house so they could fuck in peace, without overbearing mothers or alcoholic fathers. Three, almost four, decades prior to where he kneels now, too old to be breaking into someone’s house while the harsh sun beats down over his head. 

Mary, if she weren’t volunteering, would have just let him in if he’d asked - _had,_ at the midpoint in their friendship, given him a key.  _Just in case,_ She’d taunted, balancing on the knife edge of terrified and teasing, voice slurring. _If something were to happen to me, you’d be able to put down the whiskey and be my hero, Small. My fucking knight in leather jacket._ The key sits, lead heavy in his pocket, attached to the keyring Val had made during her days as a girl scout; a weighted reminder that he _could_ use it to break in.

If he did, though, would it not prove to Joseph that Mary couldn’t be trusted? Would he not tighten his grip on her, keep her in his house when she sought to erase her sobriety?  _Something’s wrong with his kids, Robert._ She hadmuttered one night, wrapped around the stem of her glass, aerating her Merlot. _There’s something wrong with him._ Yet when he’d tried to pry the truth from her lips, she’d cried out, as if breaking vows of steel trapped silence was a physical pain. No, he couldn’t use his key - getting caught with the lockpicking kit was an alibi, even though Joseph wouldn’t be home from teaching at their own faux Learning Annex for another few hours.

Joseph's house is so seemingly normal, so innocent. The feeling of perpetual wrongness sits at the base of his spine, crawling up the length of it any time he thinks of it;  _that’s why I’m here._ Robert thinks, tapping the hook through the pins in the lock. One by one, he finds the correct height and placement of pins.  _Have to protect Mary._ The click of the lock has him silently rejoicing, shoulders shimmying as he turns the doorknob with two fingers. He’s being overly cautious, really, too paranoid that even the slightest wrong movement will have him getting thrown into the back of the police car. The back door leads him through the dining room and kitchen, neat and clean and so organized. A few framed candids of their kids, smiling and bright during family vacations hang on the wall. “Jesus, Joseph, you look like a Southern Living spread…” Robert mutters as he carefully moves around the kitchen, shutting the door behind him. The island with the marble countertop he’d seen Christie sit on during the barbecue when the newest eligible dad moved to town - the pots and pans hanging overhead, hooked and precariously arranged.

Robert knows this place like the back of his hand; god, he’d been in this home before - years ago - when Joseph had _lied_ to him. Teased and hung off him in a bar, mouth working against his neck as he led him back home. _My wife left me_ . He had said, red rimmed eyes making the illusion all the more real. _She took my kids and left me. I just want to forget for a bit. Help me forget._ Robert had - so foolishly - fallen for it, a sucker for the supposed newly divorced, drunk slut bombshell. He makes his way up the stairs, calloused digits just barely trailing along smooth polished wood railing. The master bedroom is downstairs, he knows; they wouldn’t have changed the layout too much, not without moving to a whole new house. Joseph was, in anything, a stickler for his auspicious lifestyle.  

The second door on the left must be the twin’s room - confirmed when Robert spies the hand painted anchor and scripted names, a leftover from their baby days. Mary, in her state of perpetual apathy and severe depression, must have let her husband do everything in their house, if only to make the appearance of a normal nuclear family more solidified. He’d not known her then but he could see her clearly - the thick of dark hair already greying with the stress of carrying twins, gold cross around her neck presenting no real comfort. The swell of her belly so large she would never move without complaining openly about how “hard it was carrying a fucking kid; if you laugh one more goddamn time Small, I’m gonna deck you.”

Tremoring fingers wrap around the crystal knob, the room laid open to him. “Jesus Christ...” Their beds have been made, every inch smoothed, ends tucked in underneath the mattresses. Two white pillows and a circular sham fit on the center, arranged so that even their _fucking stuffed animals_ sit perfect and straight. The wall behind the vintage Jenny Lind beds is striped white and pink, thick and straight, whilst the opposite walls are powdery blue. A small white nightstand sits between the two beds; against the wall, twin toyboxes sit neatly packed away. Anxiety prickles at the back of Robert's neck as he takes in the room. It as if someone has taken a home decor magazine and transposed the images into this small idyllic home - too picture perfect, too unnaturally clean. No human kid is that clean.

Kneeling on the grey carpet -  _jesus_ it’s even been vacuumed and softened recently - the man looks underneath their beds, hoping to find some sort of messiness. The twins must have shoved stuff underneath their beds to hide from their father’s prying eyes, but there are only totes. Dragging them out, one by one, dark eyes widen at the neatly folded, color-fucking-cordinated winter apparel. The only thing keeping him from shoving them back under and rearranging the room is the small, neatly placed white box in the center of the clothing.

Tied off with a pink ribbon, it looks more like a present than something that would have been hidden away in an under-the-bed tote. As he extracts it from its clear prison, it rattles wetly - _not giftwrapping then,_ he decides, setting it carefully in his lap. Fingers still shaking from the act of going through a seven year old’s room in hopes of finding some clues that they weren’t what they were supposed to be, he carefully pulls at the ends of the ribbon, watching the slow unravelling of the bow.

So focused, methodically careful as he begins to untie the box -

“Mr. Small? What are you doing in our bedroom?” The distinctly accented voice of Christie Christiansen interrupts him - eyes wide, Robert’s head jerks up to stare at the source. The twins stand in the doorway, hands clasped together; their backpacks and socks are still on, but not their shoes. Did Joseph make them take them off by the front door? How had he not heard them come home? Barely restrained hatred bubbles in their eyes, but is stifled the moment they start to smile. Something darker lurks behind their pale blue eyes.

“Uh - I -” _Fuck_ he hadn’t even considered the time. Had they gotten home from school? What time did the elementary schools get out here? When Val had been a little girl, it’d been almost four in the afternoon - was it already so late? “I was just looking for something for your dad.”

“Did Daddy let you in the house?” Christian asks, the smile stretched across his face just a bit too wrong. “I thought Daddy stopped letting you come over when Mommy got pregnant with Crish.” Robert must be imagining what looks like the sharp teeth in her smile, the way her skin looks too stretched across her bones. Christie ducks her smile under her free hand and giggles into it. The thunder of the man's heart is almost enough to deafen her laugh, the tinkling of chimes and breathiness - _what do they know?_

“Are you a pervert, Mr. Small?” Christie asks, slipping her hand out from her brothers and taking a step into the room. Her hands fold neatly behind her back as she leans over, head tilting at the prone man in her room. “Are you trying to find Daddy’s room? Daddy sleeps downstairs - we thought you knew that.” Now it’s Christian’s turn to laugh, taking his own two steps into the room. Blood rushes to Robert's ears, throat working around his attempt to swallow nervously, Adam's apple bobbing. “Mommy’s not home but Mommy sometimes doesn’t come home anyway. Daddy says you and Mommy have sleepovers _all_ the time.”

 _What the fuck is wrong with your fucking kids,_ _Christiansen?_ “I told you kiddos - Your dad told me to get something from your house.” Robert stumbles, setting down the half-untied box before using his hands to stand up. Christie leans away, wide smile still sitting on her face, watching him. He wouldn’t hit a kid - especially not these two. Robert had seen the way Joseph had stared down one of their teachers at a church bake sale. _Christie's just a tad bit mean to her classmates._ She'd said to him.  _She's a little bit of a troublemaker isn't she?_  Joseph's eyes boring holes into the teacher's face as his fist had balled up, jaw clenching in barely contained rage. _Maybe you're just not a good person at taking care of gifted children. Maybe you shouldn't be working with children, Miss Johnson._ He'd seen it all; heard it all, the barely veiled threat in the youth minister's voice. 

“Crish doesn’t look like us -” Christie blurts out, rising on her tip toes to stare at Robert. Only then does he realise the flower she wears isn't the normal powder blue - in her platinum waves, a blood red covent garden flower sits neatly by her bangs. “Mommy likes him more than us. Mommy likes _you_ more than she likes Daddy.” 

“But Daddy likes certain things about you more than he likes Mommy.” Christian says as an afterthought, moving closer, until they're both blocking his exit. _Fuck this, **fuck this**_ **-**  Robert shoves past both kids, ignoring the way Christie laughs as she meets the ground. The box, so close to unveiling, is neglected as he runs of their room. Heavy boots lead him down the stairs, keys jingling as his kit lands with a metallic crash on the landing. Fuck it, he thinks as he throws open the back door, running into the center of the cul-de-sac. Lungs burning as he pulls in breath after breath, late summer sun pushing him into the safety of his home, his own messy fucked up beyond all recognition home.  Deadbolting the door, Robert's back hits the heavy wood as he sinks down to the floor, hands over his ears. Christie and Christian's laugh echo in his head, their taunting playing like a scratched record.  _Fuck your fucking kids, Christiansen._

 

*

 

Four missed calls from Joseph the next day, several hours apart, is what Robert wakes up to, pocket knife gripped tightly underneath his pillow. The laughs of Joseph's twins had crept into his dreams, body jerking awake with cold sweat, knuckles white around the hilt. His dadbook messenger has been blown up too, Joseph leaving a few messages at a time. _Need to talk to you ASAP, Robert. :) Hey Robert, call me when you wake up. :) Robert call me :) ROBERT!!! :)_  The fifth call he gets is from Mary, her Johnny Cash ringtone blaring at full blast, at around the usual time she hits him up to meet up at the bar. By the second ring, he has his phone to his ear, one hand rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Ready to hit the bar, bitch?” He speaks into the receiver before she’s even gotten a chance to say anything. She’s always beaten him to the punch of asking him out for a drink - of course, he has to take his victories where he can get them. “I gotta lube up for my pants before we go.”

“Robert,” the soft timber and distinctly Not-Mary voice answers his request for a drink. “Have a minute? You’ve been avoiding me all day.” The blood pools out of the older man’s face, breath catching in his throat. _Joseph._

“Why are you calling me from Mary’s cellphone, you fucking creep?” Sitting up in bed, Robert's hand moves from his face to grab the knife under his pillow. A stupid involuntary reaction - Joseph wasn’t here, he couldn’t do anything. _Could he?_ The fact that he had to even question it makes his blood run cold. 

“You refused to pick up when I called from my phone; I was starting to think you had me blocked. But you still sometimes leave drunk voicemails about how you’ll find out the ‘truth’ about me and ‘expose me for the disgusting monster I am.’ Really, Robert, did you think my wife would not tell me her passcode if I told her that you’d broken into our home and threatened our kids?” Joseph replies, laughing.  _Mary wouldn't tell you shit unless you made her, you piece of shit._

His teeth grind at the youth minister's proud, smug tone. “I didn’t fucking say a word to your kids; I won't hit a fucking kid."  _But I'd hurt you._ It hangs between them, clear and ready. "I’m not drunk yet so let me tell you, I _will_ find out what you’re hiding and I _will_ make you fucking regret it.”

Joseph laughs.

He fucking laughs.

It’s the sound of church bells but it’s so _wrong_ Robert's hands shake with the effort of not throwing his phone across the house. He couldn't afford a new phone with the repairs he's had to make on his truck.

“That’s so cute. You think you’re going to find out that I’m some big bad, who preys on innocents and hurts them because what? I get off on it?” Joseph teases, the honey in his voice hiding arsenic. He laughs again. “Robert, even if you find out everything about me, no one will listen to you. No one will believe you. You're an alcoholic neglectful father who pushed his only daughter away; you also broke into a seven year's room and was caught going through their drawers. I'm the youth minister who singlehandedly takes care of his four kids and his alcoholic deadbeat wife.” The minister pauses then, breathing softly into the receiver. "Did you threaten my children, Robert, while you were in their bedroom?"

“Fuck you, Christiansen, if you think I’d ever do anything to your fucking demon kids.” Robert snarls, stomach churning with the implications. Was Joseph insinuating that he would  _ever_ do anything to those kids? The threat of breaking into their room was clear, the nausea rushing up into his throat, barely kept at bay by his restraint.

“Robert - sweetheart, if you ever come near my kids again, I will personally cut out your entrails and feed them to your fucking dog. If you threaten me or my family again, I will ruin your reputation and have you arrested for assault of a minor. I'm _sure_ the police would understand if I told them, I was afraid my neighbour was trying to fuck my seven year old children, that they'd even put you on a sex offender's list.” The pep in Joseph’s voice is clear, lighthearted, even as the sentence sound like something out of Ted Bundy wordbank. “And no matter what you do or who you tell, no one will ever believe you.”

The call ends abruptly then, leaving Robert sitting alone in his dark bedroom, fearfully gripping his trusty knife.  _Joseph Christiansen was a fucking monster._

**Author's Note:**

> [ [twitter ](http://twitter.com/ruinatewrites) / [ko-fi](http://ko-fi.com/ruinate) ]


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